International Education Leadership EXPERT BIOs

Expert Bios

Harvey Charles

Dr. Harvey Charles was appointed the University at Albany Dean for International Education and Vice Provost for Global Strategy from August 2015 to December 2020. In this capacity, Dr. Charles provides leadership intended to help transform U Albany into a global campus in terms of its teaching, research agenda and strategic engagements. Prior to joining the University at Albany, Charles served as Vice Provost for International Initiatives and Director of the Center for International Education at Northern Arizona University. During this time, he led NAU to win the prestigious Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization and served as President of the Association of International Education Administrators, the leading association worldwide for university leaders of international higher education. In his long career in international education, he has also served as Senior International Officer at San Francisco State University, Wheaton College and Georgia Institute of Technology. He began his career as a university administrator at the University of Nevada, Reno where he was Director of International Student and Scholar Services and Associate Director of the Institute for International Studies. Apart from his deep administrative experience, Charles has published on issues including global learning, internationalizing the curriculum and comprehensive internationalization. He serves on a number of boards, frequently consults and gives addresses on international education issues in the US and around the world. Charles earned his doctoral degree from The Ohio State University in 1991.

Ron Cushing

Ron Cushing has been the Director of International Services at the University of Cincinnati for 24 years. He is responsible for serving the needs of over 5,000 non-immigrant students, faculty, and researchers. Ron has served as a mentor to over one thousand colleagues through his Fundamentals of Foreign Student Advising seminar, a three-day seminar for Designated School Officials that he has been conducting for 20 years. Ron has made well over 100 presentations at professional conferences, including regional and national NAFSA: the Association of International Educators (AIEA); the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the American International Recruitment Council (AIRC); the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC); the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AAOCRAO); Lorman Educational Services; Global Education Solutions LLC; and other organizations. Ron has been honored by NAFSA, Region VI, with the Leo Dowling Award of Excellence for his “compassion, integrity and leadership” to the field of international education. Ron is also a recipient of the University of Cincinnati’s “Just Community” award given to individuals for “outstanding contributions that promote the ideals of a just and caring community” and has been named of one the Communication Departments’ “50 Communication Alumni Champions” based on his success in his career, local community and support to UC.

David L. Di Maria

Dr. David L. Di Maria is Senior International Officer & Associate Vice Provost for International Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Prior to joining UMBC, he served as Associate Provost for International Programs at Montana State University, Director of International Programs and Services at Kent State University and Assistant Director of International Student and Scholar Services at St. Cloud State University. He is also a former President of the American International Recruitment Council and Chair of NAFSA’s International Education Leadership Knowledge Community. Dr. Di Maria regularly presents, publishes and consults globally on critical issues in international education. His most recent book is Achieving More with Less: Lean Management in the International Student Office. Dr. Di Maria earned a doctorate from the University of Minnesota, where he focused his research on campus services for international students.

Gretchen Dobson

Gretchen Dobson is a global engagement strategist, author and academic with 28 years’ experience working across six continents. Dobson advises CEOs, governing boards, embassies and policymakers on best practices in digital and other creative strategies and solutions that enable institutions, companies, organizations and governments to identify, track, engage, and manage relationships with their global stakeholders and brand ambassadors. Dobson is the author of Being Global: Making the Case for International Alumni Relations (CASE Books, 2011), the International Travel Handbook (Academic Impressions, 2014), has edited Staying Global: how international alumni relations advances the agenda (EAIE, 2015), and co-authored Engaging International Alumni as Strategic Partners (NAFSA, 2021). Dobson received her BA and MA from Boston College, and her EdD from the University of Pennsylvania. She holds adjunct faculty appointments with the University at Albany and Endicott College’s Graduate Schools of Education, and serves on the Advisory Board for the Executive Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Higher Education in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. She is based in New South Wales, Australia. For additional resources and commentary, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/gretchendobson/

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Karin Fischer

Karin Fischer is a journalist who focused on international education, including American colleges’ activities overseas, the globalization of the college experience, and study abroad. Her extensive reporting on international-student recruitment and the experience of foreign students in the United States has been collected in a special publication, Chinese Journey: Student Migrations, Family Dreams and What Happens Next. She also writes about U.S. higher education policy and the relationship between colleges and the economy. She writes a weekly global education newsletter, latitude(s), and her work has appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New York Times, EdSource, the Washington Monthly, and University World News. She also is a research associate at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California at Berkeley. Ms. Fischer is a recipient of the East-West Center’s Jefferson Fellowship and the International Reporting Project fellowship, both for reporting in Asia. Her work has been honored by the Education Writers Association, the National Press Foundation, and the Poynter Institute. She is a graduate of Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Ms. Fischer is an International Education Leadership Fellow at the University at Albany, and teaches a Special Topics course on Communicating International Education.

Mitch Leventhal

Dr. Mitch Leventhal (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is Professor of Professional Practice & Entrepreneurship. Prior to his current appointment, Leventhal served as Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs at the SUNY system administration. An international leader in the area of global higher education management, Dr. Leventhal has been an advocate for reform of US recruiting practice, development of new financing paradigms in support of internationalization, creation of improved technical systems to support comprehensive internationalization, and deeper and more creative approaches to engagement with corporate partners. Dr. Leventhal is a co-founder and past president of the American International Recruitment Council (AIRC), a standard development organization which has developed the first rigorous certification process for international student recruitment agencies. He also has served as Senior Advisor on Academic Affairs to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), where he headed a global academic working group which is developing an implementation and reporting framework so that higher education institutions can adopt UNGC principles with the same efficacy as corporations. Prior to his arrival at SUNY, Leventhal served as Vice Provost for International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Leventhal has founded several companies, including a global payments company which is now publicly traded on the NASDAQ and London stock exchanges, and another – a Yale University spinoff – which facilitated technology transfer between research institutions and the private sector. Mitch Leventhal’s higher education research interests include global strategy, risk management, private equity flows, entrepreneurship, and cross-border mobility. His doctorate was awarded by the University of Chicago, and focused on the development of for-profit medical schools and their impact on Caribbean development.

Josh McKeown

Dr. Joshua McKeown is an International Education Leadership Fellow in the program, and will be leading the Institute’s Crisis Leadership Simulation. Dr. McKeown has been the senior international officer at the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego) since 2008. As Associate Provost for International Education and Programs, he directs international initiatives that have been recognized with numerous national awards, including: the Diversity Abroad Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion in International Education (EDIIE) award for Organizational Excellence; the American Association of State Colleges & Universities (AASCU) Award for Excellence and Innovation in International Education; the Institute of International Education (IIE) Heiskell Award Honorable Mention for Innovation in Study Abroad. He also has led the institution to multiple rankings in the top twenty in the Open Doors national ranking of U.S. students abroad. McKeown leads strategy, directs personnel and manages priorities for education abroad, international student and scholar services, international recruiting and campus internationalization. He directs a department with nineteen staff in the U.S. and overseas running over 80 study abroad and exchange programs in more than 30 countries, enrolling 400 – 500 students per year.

Nancy Ruther

Nancy L. Ruther is principal and founder of Gazelle International, a non-profit helping innovative university leaders break out and harness technology to expand access to high quality international higher education. She has guided the Connecticut Community Colleges internationalization effort with CT CLICKs modeled on SUNY’s COIL and other virtual exchange efforts. She also serves as Senior Fellow in Higher Education and Strategy with the Yale Women Faculty Forum helping re-energize their research-based advocacy program and faculty membership. In senior leadership with The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, she grew budgets from $3 to $40M, kept Yale in the winners circle with Title VI grants and developed degree and certificate programs, expanded language teaching, developed faculty and graduate student exchanges and collaborations, managed scores of visiting faculty and competitions for student field projects, fee-based programs as well as outreach to the larger K-12 and college education communities. She also has developed simple, effective approaches to assessing the impact of international higher education, with a particular eye to graduate and professional students. For expanding educational exchange and partnerships, the French government honored her with the Chevalier des Palmes Académiques. Her longstanding research and advocacy interest is the interaction of federal policy and the international capacity of the U.S. higher education system, especially the HEA Title VI Act impact on building and sustaining international, area and language studies in the curriculum and research agenda. Her doctorate is in higher education and public policy from the University of Massachusetts along with MS Agricultural Economics (Cornell) and a MPIA in International Affairs and BA Latin American Studies (University of Pittsburgh). In addition to teaching at Yale, Columbia and the University of Connecticut, she has worked as a consultant in overseas development and strategic management and as a management trainer and researcher in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile, Ghana, Pakistan, Portugal and Thailand among others. She began her career as a foreign service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development serving in La Paz, Bolivia. She speaks Spanish, chats in Brazilian Portuguese and loves to say “hello” in any language! Dr. Ruther is an International Education Leadership Fellow at the University at Albany, and teaches a Special Topics course in Connected Strategies.

Yusuf Joseph Ugras

Dr. Ugras is a leader in International Education. He brings over 30 years of academic experience that includes academic leadership as well as teaching and research in Accounting, Finance and International Business Strategy. His academic leadership started with leading a very large MBA program at La Salle University that evolved into leadership of the School of Business. He then served as the first Associate Provost for International Education at La Salle University. As Associate Provost he provided leadership to international education policy at the university and chaired the International Education Team for campus wide effort to internationalize the university. He has held elected and appointed board positions at American Institute of Recruitment Council (AIRC) and University Professional and Continuing Education Association (UPCEA). Dr. Ugras regularly presents and consults on International Education issues nationally and internationally. His recent international seminars took place in China, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland, Russia, Turkey, and Vietnam. Most recently, he was invited to speak at Shanghai University in China, Galatasaray University in Istanbul, Turkey and at Moscow State University, in Russia. Dr. Ugras is currently an Associate Professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia, U.S.A. He also has a strong background in corporate training. His research interests are Strategic Decision Making, Business Ethics, Educational Programming and Leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Accounting from Temple University. He has recently completed Value Investing Certificate and holds a Certified Management Accounting (CMA) certificate.

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